Macrovision announced that the company will co-host a second installment of the popular "Hacker University" program, launched at E3 last year.

Rob Ellison, director of product management at Macrovision, and Steven Davis, CEO at SecurePlay, will speak at "HackU: Beat the Hackers at Their Own Game" in San Francisco at this year's Game Developers Conference on March 10, 2005. A Macrovision PC game pirating white paper will be available for those who attend.

The session will cover new video gamer survey statistics that show a significant rise in illegal copying and downloading of PC and console video games, and translate that trend to revenue loss in the games industry. The presentation will also address techniques used by hackers and explain how game developers and publishers can battle this growing threat.

"Our study shows that most people that obtain an illegal copy of a video game would have bought it if it hadn't been so readily available for free on peer-to-peer networks and websites or so easily copied from friends," said Rob Ellison of Macrovision. "This session will explore the real impact of illegal copying and hacking today and offer insight into some of the tricks and techniques that hackers use to crack game code, and ways you can protect your games."